Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The penalty is imprisonment up to three years or fine up to Rs. 10 crore, or both.

Section 26(1) of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 provides that whoever fails to comply with any order, award or decision of the Tribunal shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine which may extend to ten crore rupees, or with both. A company faces a fine of up to twenty-five crore rupees.

The other options get either the term of imprisonment or the amount of the fine wrong.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

The term comes from the National Environmental Policy Act, 1969.

The US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), signed in January 1970, first required federal agencies to prepare a detailed statement of the environmental impact of major actions. That requirement is the origin of environmental impact assessment, which then spread to other countries.

India's Air Act (1981), Water Act (1974) and Environment (Protection) Act (1986) came later; EIA in India was made mandatory by a notification under the 1986 Act in 1994, borrowing the concept rather than creating it.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The convention is the Bonn Convention.

The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), signed at Bonn in 1979, states in its preamble that wild animals in their innumerable forms are an irreplaceable part of the earth's natural system which must be conserved for the good of mankind, and that each generation holds the earth's resources for future generations.

The Ramsar Convention (1971) protects wetlands of international importance. The conventions named after Rome and Nairobi deal with other subjects and do not contain this statement on wild animals.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The protocol is the Cartagena Protocol.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 2000 and in force from 2003, aims to ensure an adequate level of protection in the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology, particularly their movement across borders. Its main tool is the advance informed agreement procedure.

The Nagoya Protocol (2010) deals with access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing, and the Kyoto Protocol (1997) with greenhouse gas emissions. There is no Nairobi Protocol on this subject.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

'Environment' includes water, air and land and the interrelationship among them and human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organisms and property.

Section 2(a) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 defines environment as including water, air and land and the inter-relationship which exists among and between water, air and land, and human beings, other living creatures, plants, micro-organism and property. The definition is deliberately wide, covering both the physical media and the relations between them and living things.

Each of the other options lists only part of the definition and adds 'only', which makes it wrong.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The paper's key is Samaj Parivartana Samudaya Vs. State of Karnataka (2013).

News and legal reports attribute this statement, that intergenerational equity and sustainable development are embedded in constitutional jurisprudence as part of the right under Article 21, to the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam in the Karnataka illegal mining litigation, which is the Samaj Parivartana Samudaya case. I did not read the judgment itself, so the attribution rests on those reports and on the key.

T. N. Godavarman Thirumulpad is the long-running forest case, and Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991) is known for reading the right to pollution-free water and air into Article 21. I could not confirm that either case contains this particular sentence.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

No permit can be granted for collection of specimen for personal use.

Section 12 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 allows the Chief Wild Life Warden to grant a permit to hunt wild animals only for special purposes: education, scientific research, scientific management, the collection of specimens for recognised zoos, museums and similar institutions, and the derivation of snake venom for life-saving drugs.

Collection of specimens is allowed only for such institutions, never for personal use, while education, scientific research and scientific management are listed purposes.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

Pollution from earthquakes, cyclones or volcanic eruptions is natural pollution.

Pollution is classed by source. Natural pollution comes from natural events and processes: volcanic ash and gases, dust raised by storms, debris and contamination after earthquakes and cyclones, forest fires started by lightning. Man-made (anthropogenic) pollution comes from human activities.

Industrial and accidental pollution are kinds of man-made pollution, from factories and from mishaps such as oil spills or gas leaks, so they do not describe pollution caused by natural disasters.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

Bio-medical waste used to be regulated by the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998.

These Rules, framed by the Central Government under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, were the first specific regime for the segregation, treatment and disposal of waste generated in hospitals and laboratories. They were replaced by the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016.

The Water and Air Acts deal with pollution of water and air generally and have no specific scheme for bio-medical waste. The Environment (Protection) Act supplied the power to make the Rules, but the regulation itself was in the 1998 Rules, which is why the question says 'used to be'.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The Act implements the decisions of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm.

The preamble of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 recites that decisions were taken at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm in June 1972, in which India participated, to take appropriate steps for the protection and improvement of the human environment, and that it is considered necessary to implement those decisions.

The Rio Earth Summit (1992) and the Johannesburg summit (2002) came after the Act, so it could not have been enacted to implement them. The Basel Convention on hazardous wastes was adopted in 1989, also after the Act.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The document that is not a policy document on environment protection is the National Policy Document for Sustainable Development and Conservation of Forest and Environment, 1967.

No such document exists, and the date gives it away: the idea of sustainable development entered policy only after the Brundtland Report of 1987, and India's environmental policy framework dates from the 1970s onwards.

The other three are genuine: the National Forest Policy, 1988; the Policy Statement for Abatement of Pollution, 1992; and the National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment and Development, 1992.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

The keyed cause is industrialisation.

Acid rain forms when sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides released into the air react with water vapour to form sulphuric and nitric acids. The largest source of sulphur dioxide is the burning of coal and oil in thermal power stations, smelters and other industries, which is why acid rain is linked above all with industrialisation.

Vehicles add nitrogen oxides, and urban growth increases fuel use, so both contribute, but neither is the principal source of the sulphur emissions that drive the problem. 'None of the above' is wrong because acid rain plainly has these man-made causes.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The tiger is protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Schedule I lists the species that receive the highest protection: hunting them is banned throughout India and offences carry the heaviest penalties. The tiger, India's national animal, is listed there along with the lion, the elephant, the snow leopard and others.

Schedule II also gives a high level of protection, but to a different list of species. Schedule III covers species such as some deer with lesser penalties, and 'Appendix' is a term of CITES, the international trade convention, not a schedule of the Indian Act.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

Such species are listed in Appendix II of CITES.

Appendix II covers species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction now but may become so unless trade in them is closely controlled. International trade is allowed, but only with an export permit from the exporting country, granted when trade will not harm the species' survival.

Appendix I lists species already threatened with extinction, where commercial trade is generally banned and both import and export permits are needed. Appendix III lists species protected in one country that has asked others for help in controlling trade. CITES has no Appendix B; Annex B belongs to the European Union's wildlife trade regulations.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : A

The heading hunting of wild animals to be permitted in certain cases is that of Section 11 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, which allows the Chief Wild Life Warden to permit the hunting of a wild animal that has become dangerous to human life or is so disabled or diseased as to be beyond recovery.

Sections 21 and 22 are in the chapter on protected areas and deal with the proclamation and inquiry by the Collector when a sanctuary is declared, and Section 15 is also in that chapter, so none of them concerns the permission to hunt.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

The National Tiger Conservation Authority was constituted under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, through the 2006 amendment that added the chapter on the Tiger Conservation Authority and the Tiger and Other Endangered Species Crime Control Bureau.

The Environment (Protection) Act is of 1986, and there is no Environment Protection Act of 2005. The Biological Diversity Act was passed in 2002, not 1991, and it set up the National Biodiversity Authority, not the NTCA.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : D

The power to take samples of effluents and the procedure to be followed in connection with them is in Section 21 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974: the State Board or an authorised officer may take samples of effluent from any stream, well or sewer, or of trade effluent, and have them analysed.

Section 23 gives the power of entry and inspection and Section 25 provides restrictions on new outlets and new discharges, so those are different provisions. Section 22 is a neighbouring provision on another step of the process and is not the sampling provision.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

The Protected Areas, meaning sanctuaries, national parks, conservation reserves and community reserves, are notified under Chapter IV of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Chapter IV is headed Protected Areas, and the provisions on tiger reserves are placed in the sub-chapter added to it by the 2006 amendment.

Chapter V is a different subject, trade or commerce in wild animals, animal articles and trophies, and Chapter VI deals with the prevention and detection of offences. The later chapters cover other matters, so none of them is the home of the provisions on notifying sanctuaries and national parks.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : B

The PUC requirement rests on Section 190(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and Rules 115 and 116 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989.

Rule 115 prescribes the emission standards for motor vehicles and requires every vehicle, after its first year, to carry a valid 'Pollution Under Control' certificate. Rule 116 provides for testing vehicles for smoke density and emissions and for action against vehicles that fail. Section 190(2) punishes driving or causing a vehicle to be driven in contravention of the standards on road safety, noise control and air pollution.

The other options pair sections and rules on unrelated subjects; Section 177, for example, is the general penalty for offences with no specific penalty, and Section 160 concerns furnishing particulars of a vehicle involved in an accident.

Your Answer : (Not Answered)

Correct Answer : C

Clause (ii) of Section 3(2) covers planning and execution of a nation-wide programme for the prevention, control and abatement of environmental pollution.

Section 3(2) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 lists the measures the Central Government may take. Clause (i) is co-ordination of action by the States, and clause (ii) is the nation-wide programme.

The other three are real powers but sit in other clauses: laying down standards for the quality of the environment is clause (iii), carrying out and sponsoring investigations and research is clause (ix), and collection and dissemination of information is clause (xii). The question tests the clause number, not whether the power exists.